Burning a movie to play in all dvd players

Hello,
I have been searching trying to find instructions on how to burn a movie on a dvd to play in all dvd players, and I am coming up quite confused on exactly how to do this. I need to know what format that I need the movie to be in & what products to use. By the way I have Sonic Record Now by Phillips dvd burner. Any help given on this subject would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

i was confused like you to start with..no worries....is the file an avi file?...dvd players wont play avi files...u have to convert it to mpeg or mpg.....with an avi convertor program...............have you downloaded codecs?